


Run Me Like A River

by Thoughts Like A Minefield (Incog_Ninja)



Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Anal Sex, Angst, Biting, Blood, Bondage, Bruising, F/M, Post-Apocalypse, Rough Sex, Show level violence, Superpowers, This Is Not Your Mother's Dean Winchester, Unhealthy Relationships, consensual (?) but probably not safe or sane, disdain for the L word, excessive use of the F word bc Dean and Jess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2020-02-23 19:00:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18708040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Incog_Ninja/pseuds/Thoughts%20Like%20A%20Minefield
Summary: AU wherein Jessica Jones is super-powered by gov’t experiments to create elite soldiers, the Winchesters are military officers in humanity’s War Against Evil, and they have all gone AWOL from their assigned roles, but still fight. Dean and Jess embark in a relationship that ends abruptly and explosively until Dean calls her for help on a very personal case.





	1. Maybe It's 'Coz I'm Wearing Your Cologne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brrose/gifts), [Glass_Jacket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glass_Jacket/gifts), [marksmanfem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marksmanfem/gifts), [stunudo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stunudo/gifts).



> Thank you brrose, Glass_Jacket, marksmanfem, and stunudo for your endless, unconditional support. You all are always here for me, always have been, even when you don't have the time to spare. I love you. xox

Jessica sits quietly, watching the birds on her fire escape. She doesn’t much care about what they’re doing but watching them occupies her sight for a bit and distracts her enough to not obsess over the message she received mere moments before. She doesn’t want to think about why Dean Winchester “needs” to talk to her. **  
**

She can’t help her mind from wandering, though, and soon she’s remembering – remembering his mouth demanding hers, his hands gripping and pressing her wrists into the mattress, his hips bruising her inner thighs, his cock hammering, hammering, hammering inside her. Remembers his eyes, cold as iron and sharp enough to draw blood as she walked out his door.

She shivers at the memory and takes a sip of her tepid coffee.

“Not enough whiskey,” she mutters to herself, reaching for the open bottle of Maker’s to pour a healthy amount into her mug. Her phone buzzes again and without even looking, she shoves it across the table. It hits the floor with a loud smack.

“Fucking Winchester,” she sighs then takes a long pull of her whiskeyed coffee before closing her eyes and leaning her head back to rest in her desk chair.

* * *

“That’s adorable,” she said. “It’s all about your dick, right?”

They were arguing over who had made her come harder the night before. He claimed full responsibility for all three orgasms she’d had, and Jessica argued that if she hadn’t used her fingers on the third round, he’d have been pumping all night for nothing.

She was playing with him, though. The mere thought of Dean – the taciturn, angry, war-hardened soldier – simply existing had her halfway to coming, anytime anywhere. She knew egging him on would get a rise out of him, though, and she liked what he did to her when she riled him up.

Dean exhaled a slow billow of smoke, eyeing her sideways. “Could put you over my knee right now, you know that?” he asked, brow arched before focusing on his cigarette and the road once more.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Nice. Threat of violence because I challenged your potency.”

She leafed through their research as Dean drove. They were looking for a rougarou who may have been the last to see Jessica’s client’s wife alive. The police had given up on the investigation, the corrupt and pointless force that they were.

Both Jessica’s and the Winchesters’ businesses had become high demand operations. They were each specialized in their skills, ruthless, and efficient. From the moment their respective assignments had overlapped, it became apparent that working together would be beneficial for everyone. So they did work together - among other things.

“Keep talkin’, smart ass,” Dean muttered, flicking the butt out the open window.

Jessica felt herself clench, warm and damp, and she stifled a smirk. There was no easy definition for what they were to each other. He pushed and she pulled, and they both got off on it with flying colors. That was enough for her at the time.

“Take a left up here,” she said after they’d been driving a few minutes in silence.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean muttered, taking the turn and pulling into an overgrown parking lot of what appeared to have once been an apartment building. Vines grew up the sides of the brick structure and several windows were long blown out.

“You take me to the most romantic places, Dean bean,” Jessica said, sticky sweet, as she slammed the door to the Impala. Dean replied with a grunt as they each checked their weapons and scanned the area surrounding the building before making their way to the entrance.

They searched the entire building for any signs of life and found nothing. It was a shithole – dank and dirty, and it smelled like death. They came to a stop in a lower level space on the opposite side of the building as the car. One wall was lined with predictably broken windows. The style of the place reminded Jessica of old loft apartments; the kind of places people used to live independently before the military stepped in to “protect the public” by putting them in camps.

“Looks like the coast is clear,” she said, casually glancing around the spacious room one last time. “Maybe we should split up and-”

Dean had her by the back of her neck, face against the wall before she could finish her sentence. He blanketed her frame from behind with his chest and the hand not pressing her cheek to the rough cinder block was working at the front of her jeans.

“Ready to back that mouth up?” he murmured in her ear and wound her thick, inky tresses around his wrist and hand. The heat of his breath chilled her as he pushed her hair out of his way so he could lick the length of her neck.

Jessica was a super-powered human who could snap even the toughest of monster-fighting soldiers clean in half. But any time Dean decided to push her around a little, manhandle her, she let him. She didn’t just let him, she silently begged him.

“What, you can’t take a little teasing?” She bucked her ass into his groin and twisted at the neck to try and get a look at him. All she could see was a glimpse tongue and sharp teeth dragging over his bottom lip.

“I fucking  _hate_  it.” His voice was low and even, his cock hard against her ass, as he jerked her jeans open and yanked them over her hips with her underwear. “Got half mind to put you on your knees on this filthy floor.” He unbuckled his belt and opened his pants with one hand, keeping her face pressed against the cold concrete. “Make you take my dick in that smart mouth and suck me off.”

Then he kicked her feet apart, ran his cock between her soaked lips and pushed inside.

He exhaled loudly, breezing the hairs at the back of her exposed neck. “But,  _fuck_  – this pussy,” he groaned over every word as he worked his way inside her wet heat, past the tight entry, and into the abyss. He seated himself deep inside the place where they’d meet so seamlessly, so pure and complete.

Jessica used her effortless strength to push away from the wall, pushed until Dean staggered back a foot, then bent at the waist and hung her head between her arms where they braced against the cinder blocks. “Well?” She threw a glance up over her shoulder. “What’re you waitin’ for, tough guy? Fuck me.”

Dean snarled, his thick fingers tightening around her hips, right at the curve where they met her thighs. She could feel his fingertips bruising her skin and her bones aching from the pressure of his grip. The bruises would heal faster than when she was simply human, but while she had them, she’d cherish them.

“Think you’re the baddest bitch, don’tcha?” Dean grit through his teeth. “Think I don’t own this ass?” He squeezed so tight, she yelped. Then he released one bruised hip to smack it, sharp and hard.

He reached for each of her hands and jerked them behind her back. Jessica grinned, unfettered as she felt him secure her wrists with a zip tie, keeping her bent over, her hair hanging loose. He used her bound wrists as leverage and anchored his other over her leather-clad shoulder before setting a brutal pace.

“Shit,” she breathed heavy and hard, her smile a mile wide. “Gimme that good dick, Winchester.”

He laughed then. “Think I should let you come after that stunt in the car?” He kept fucking her, and her orgasm, the one that was ever-looming in Dean’s presence, began to dance in her belly

“Let me?” She laughed back, clenching around him.

Dean spun, then, and shoved her to the floor. She fell, not too gracefully, face down, hands tied behind her back, jeans bunched around her knees. The cold floor was grimy, and she turned her cheek to it, began to situate herself, but, then, Dean was straddling her thighs.

“Beg,” he said, dragging his thick length through her slick from behind, pushing her t-shirt up and wrapping his fingers around her rib cage. “Beg me, or I’ll finish myself off on your back and leave you here.”

The way he dared to speak to her made her head swim. The way he touched her like she was a piece of meat. He meant every word of it, even though he knew very well that she could buck him off any second and beat the living shit out of him. Just letting him talk to her like he really did own her – it was a heady thing for them both.

He teased her hole, slid over her swollen clit, and she twisted and rippled beneath him. She could snap her plastic bindings, flip Dean to his back and ride him until both of them passed out. What she really wanted, though, was to let him have her.

“Please,” she whispered.

She heard him chuckle, dark and quiet before he draped over her back to speak in her ear. “Please, what?” he asked, pulling flesh between teeth.

She thought about arching just right to get him inside, but she liked him right then – just the way he was, wound up and sweating, just this side of cruel and wanting a piece.

“Please, fuck me,” she relented, nuzzling her cheek into his lips.

Dean huffed against her cheek and dragged his mouth to her jaw then took the delicate hinge into his mouth. He clamped his teeth over the bone as he pushed back inside her. His fingers tangled in her mess of hair, holding it to the floor as his other braced at her waist. He rutted hard and fast and deep inside her, hitting the spot that made her eyes cross.

The pain of his teeth around her bone and the perfect slam of his angled cock had her coming, screaming loud enough to wake the dead. When he finally released her jaw, leaving behind a beautifully blooming bruise, he followed, spilling inside her with a roar.

 

* * *

 

Jessica is jolted back to the moment by the warmth of her cat curling in her lap. Her memories of Dean take her pretty deep into her mind and… well, being in there too long isn’t fun.

“Malcolm,” Jessica says, sitting up and stroking her companion’s furry nose. “You’re a needy little fucker. I ‘spose you want something to eat.” He squeaks at her and bounds to the floor.

“How do you know what that means? Eat,” she talks to him like he knows what she’s saying because he probably does. “OK, lemme get a can of food.”

Jessica walks to the kitchen, promising herself to clear her mind, however she can, before returning Dean’s call.


	2. I Like The Taste Of My Will Caving In

“I’m just saying, if I’d been even 10-seconds earlier to that crime scene, maybe I’d be in a different brother’s bed,” Jessica joked with Sam.

Sam Winchester, for all his chilling looks and serial killer obsessiveness, his determination to do precisely what he set out to do with no determent, was the easier to get along with Winchester. He laughed effortlessly and always had a joke for her. Jessica liked his company and he seemed to like hers.

“Well, let’s keep that between us, yeah?” Sam laughed quietly, shaking his head as he inspected the gun he was cleaning. If Jessica didn’t know him better, she’d have thought he was blushing. But Sam Winchester didn’t blush.

“Right because your brother’d give a shit if I bailed,” Jessica scoffed and rolled her eyes, but she caught the confused look Sam threw her. “What?” she asked.

Sam looked thoughtful for a moment before setting his weapon aside and turning his attention back to her. “Why do you stay?” he asked, looking genuinely curious of her answer. “If you think he doesn’t care about you, why do you stick around?”

Jessica was taken aback by the question. She wanted to laugh it off but couldn’t.

“Seriously,” he said, encouraging her to answer.

She thought for a second about her relationship with Dean. It was fraught with tension. She constantly felt like she was dangling over the edge of a cliff, preparing for a drop that would never come. It made her feel like she was suffocating until Dean would finally breathe her in. Dean made her feel intensely sensual, physical, hyper-aware of herself at all times. It overwhelmed and intoxicated her.

“Maybe I’m a masochist,” she answered with a shrug, and Sam’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling.

“Huh,” he said, settling back into his chair. “Maybe you are.”

* * *

The dull thrum of voltages connecting her to Dean Winchester begins to sound in her ear. Her skin prickles on the second ring and by the third, she’s broken into a sweat. Halfway through the fourth ring, Dean answers.

“Jess?” He sounds out of breath and anxious.

Jessica feels the room tilt and vibrate. She’s thankful that she’s sitting down.

“Hey,” she answers, her throat cracking around the single syllable. She swallows dryly and reaches for the bottle of Maker’s on her desk. She can hear him breathing on the other end of the line, so far away, as she takes a long pull off the heavy bottle.

“Hey,” he echoes. “Thanks for…” Dean sighs. “I know I’m not your favorite person in the world, but I need your help on somethin’.”

Jessica closes her eyes and swallows a mouthful of fire. She shakes her head.  _Not her favorite person._  What an understatement. “So you said. On what?” she asks, taking a smaller sip from the bottle to steady herself.

Dean’s quiet for a beat or two and Jessica considers hanging up. Some would say it should be water under the bridge by now, but all that’s left is ash.

“Sammy’s missing,” Dean finally answers, and Jessica’s heart drops. She immediately stands from her chair but doesn’t know for what.

“And I…” Dean’s breath shakes. “I don’t even know where to start, Jess.”

“Where are you?” she asks, moving toward her door. “Drop me a pin, I’ll come to you.” She hears the pin notification as she shrugs into her heavy leather jacket.

“Sent,” he says. She can hear the desperation in his voice. “I’m maybe two hours from you.”

Sam has always been Dean’s weakness, his blind spot. Jessica knows Sam is Dean’s number one priority. Him calling her for her help to find the only person in this world that he would ever truly love sends her reeling with anxiety, resentment, and, finally, a sense of purpose.

“On my way,” she says, ready to end the call, but Dean stops her before she can execute.

“Thank you,” he says, and she slows to a halt as she pulls her door shut behind her.

Jessica fidgets and breathes and closes her eyes to the burn that threatens to spill over her cheeks at the mere sound of his voice.

“I’m on my way,” she repeats before tapping ‘disconnect’ on her screen.

* * *

Jessica ran her hand over the bare expanse of Dean’s shoulders. His skin was scarred, freckled, tattooed, bronzed from the harsh sun, but it was still so smooth, so firm, so full of hard-earned muscle.

Before the War Against Evil, Dean was a baseball player. He was boyishly handsome, and he smiled and flirted, and all the girls swooned – or so Sam had told Jessica. Then their father was killed in battle, their mother was murdered by a demon, and their Uncle Bobby was executed for treason, a crime that was never proven.

Jessica once saw a picture of Sam and Dean as teenagers. The light that shone from Dean’s eyes and broad grin was blinding. Looking at the image for very long had been almost painful for her.

“You’re awake,” Dean rumbled, voice lazy and rough. He turned to face her. “You sleep at all?” he asked, running the backs of his knuckles across her collarbone and down between her breasts, over the gentle slope of her belly and tucking his hand in the apex of her thighs.

Jessica hummed noncommittally in answer and rolled to her back, letting her legs fall open, relishing the stretch from his calloused fingers as they pushed inside her. Dean had her right on the edge every minute of every day, no matter how many times she’d already come.

“Fuck, you’re still swollen,” he groaned, covering one nipple with his hot mouth to suck. “Used you good and hard last night, didn’t I?” He curled his fingers and squeezed her cunt in his hand, pressing the heel over her clit and slipping a third and fourth finger inside. “Gonna fall apart for me again?”

Jessica let her mind wander, still hazy from so much whiskey the night before, still fevered from his hands around her throat as he pumped into her furiously. She let herself go with him, let herself be boneless, delicate. Dean’s brutal physicality freed her mind.

He rhythmically squeezed her in his big hand and alternated between sucking each breast into his mouth as he climbed to kneel between her legs. All she could do was lie there, legs open wide, and take him.

“Fuck… any other woman’d be destroyed by now, but not you.” Dean hummed into her neck as his knuckles worked inside her. “You love it, don’t you?”

Jessica groaned and bucked into his hand. “Bite,” she whispered, and Dean didn’t hesitate to do it. He hovered over her and nipped and licked at her nipples as his hand fucked her into submission. “Kiss,” she gasped.

Dean’s mouth took hers over, tongue probing and teeth pulling. She felt a sharp scrape around her bottom lip and tasted copper. “Fucking come,” he seethed, punching into her, twisting his fisted fingers and squeezing her clit in his palm. “I want your ass, come on. Come and I’ll fuck you.”

Jessica breathed open mouth, panting, nodding desperately until she was shouting, open wide and spraying wet. “Shit,” she sobbed.

Dean didn’t wait to roll her to her belly once he’d pulled his hand from inside her. He spread her cheeks apart and spit, rubbed and pressed his thumb then two fingers inside. It stung so well, and she hissed.

They never waited for her to be fully prepped. She liked the burn and he liked the violence. He was right; if she’d been any other woman, he’d have wrecked her by now. But not her.

He reached for the lube and squirted some on himself before grabbing her hip to inch back and forth, working his way inside. Jessica pushed to all fours to better take him. Soon he was all rough thrusts and grunts. She was going to come again.

The pain and intensity that Dean wrought was borne from the mental loop in which he thrived, stemming from his days as special forces, getting results any way he could. Outside of the military, AWOL as he was, he got off on it and that got her off. The way he touched her pushed her into a chasm of nothing and everything.

“Fuck, Winchester,” she grunted. “Love this-  _you_ …” And she was flying apart.

She realized what she’d said as it was sliding from her lips. She realized because, subconsciously, she felt something deep. Dean faltered for just a second, but it was long enough for her to realize he had read her tone, her body, what she’d meant for months, what she gave him and showed him.

“Fuck,” he swore, pushed her face into the mattress and picked up his pace and used his weight, pushed her down at him and braced himself there. “You can’t… ugh,  _fuck_.”

Dean pumped into her erratically three more times before collapsing over her, panting, sweating. He pulled out of her body, his dick only half-hard. He had yet come.

Jessica braced herself for whatever the onslaught. Would he yell? Would he mock her? She rolled to her back away from him into the mess they’d made, hand over her eyes. She waited.

“This isn’t…” he started, out of breath and passion, graceless. “We can’t-” He stopped himself cold and sat up. “I don’t want that. You, soft and sweet,” he sneered and ran a hand over his face before staring up at the ceiling.

Of course, he didn’t love her back - she never expected him too, but that simple comment raised her hackles more than anything he ever could’ve said.

“Listen, asshole,” she sat up, challenging him. “I said the L word, ok? But don’t call me  _soft_  or  _sweet_.” She bolted from the bed and pulled her jeans on, rooted around for a t-shirt. “I love the way you fuck me, ok? Fuck you for hating a word.”

Jessica stormed from their shared bedroom in the dilapidated building, pulling her t-shirt over her head, trying to just get away then running smack into Sam. “Jesus, you assholes’re everywhere,” she said, pushing past Sam into the kitchen.

“What the Hell did I do?” Sam asked, bewildered.

“You’re a fucking  _Winchester_ , for starters,” she snapped, screwing the cap from the bottle of whiskey on the counter to take a long pull. “Second, your brother is so unnaturally attached to  _you_  that a girl can’t even tell him how she feels about his dick without him losing his damn mind.”

Dean emerged from the bedroom, shirtless, worn and dirty jeans hanging low on his hips. “Leave him outta this, Jess,” Dean said, sounding tired and impatient. He reached for a pack of cigarettes and shook one loose.

Sam’s eyes darted between the two of them. “I don’t wanna know what  _this_  is,” he said, pocketing his phone. “I’m going on a supply run.” Sam crossed the room and disarmed the GPS scrambler long enough to open the door. “Be done with your bullshit by the time I get back,” he warned them.

Once they were alone, Jessica looked at Dean where he sat quietly on the threadbare couch, finishing his smoke. She sighed and rounded the kitchen island to join him.

“Don’t,” he said, taking one last drag. “We aren’t- I can’t talk about this.”

Jessica nodded and looked out the dirty windows at the grey sky. A single blackbird flew into view and out of it before she said anything.

“It never happened,” she said, and Dean nodded in her periphery.

She drew a deep breath and slapped her thighs before standing. “Gonna grab a shower,” she said, watching Dean actively avoid her gaze.

As she moved toward the bathroom, she felt a pit in her belly. Neither of them was going to forget what she’d said and when she’d said it –  _how_  she’d said it. And knowing what she knew of Dean, he wasn’t going to forgive her, either, for ruining the best thing either of them could have in a world so dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like what you're reading, let me know! xox


	3. Shut Your Mouth And Run Me Like A River

Jessica parks a half a mile from the pinned location. She abandons the vehicle and walks until the pin flashes bright, signaling that she’s met her destination.

She surveys the small structure as she approaches. Part of it’s been blown to rubble. It isn’t the kind of place most survivors of the War would consider safe or even remotely adequate shelter – but Dean Winchester isn’t most survivors.

A few really fucking giant rats scurry about. Jessica doesn’t care about them at all. They keep to themselves, forage for food. It’s every man – or rat – for himself.

Once she’s certain there are no living forms within earshot, apart from the one she’s looking for, she sends out the signal. It’s a simple whistle, one that could be considered natural to any habitat in this part of what used to be the United States; it’s a bird call.

Instead of answering the call, Dean emerges from the destroyed building. He’s dirty – no surprise – has a fresh scar from hairline, through eyebrow, along the edge of his right eye and over the high curve of his cheekbone. As he approaches her, custom AR-15 in his arms, thigh holster in place, Jessica feels her insides riot.

~~~~~~~

“What the  _fuck_ , Winchester?”

“Just… wait,” Dean said, one hand splayed over her breastbone, blocking her path. “We dunno what we’re gonna find in there.”

“Right,” she said, her impatience hemorrhaging her tone. “So let’s go.” She swiped his hand away and attempted to pass, but he stepped into her path again, looking not-so-sure of himself.

Trish had been missing for five days, snatched on a mission. She was tough and well-trained, but everyone makes mistakes. That didn’t stop Jessica from agonizing over it for those days.

Jessica scoffed. “You think you can stop me?” She arched a brow and squared her hips, widened her stance.

Dean shook his head. “Nope,” he answered. “Just want you to take a breath before goin’ in there’s all.” His eyes were soft, softer than she’d ever seen them, and pleading.

“Jess,” Sam spoke from somewhere off to the side cutting into the tension. “Let me go.” Her eyes snapped to Sam and he held up his hands, palms open and out. “Just to check it out.”

They assumed the worst possible demise of Trish and didn’t want Jessica to be the one to find her. Adrenaline that no superpowered being needed pumped through Jessica’s body from not knowing, guessing,  _imagining_ , and hopelessly praying over her adoptive sister’s fate.

Jessica heaved a sigh. “Five minutes and I’m comin’ in,” she relinquished.

Jessica let the Winchesters win arguments sometimes. Mostly because they were equals, they respected her as a fighter and an investigator, and she them, and because, on occasion, they were right. At that moment, Jessica knew she needed to gather herself. If Trish needed her strength, she would muster it all.

Sam nodded once before throwing his brother a look and heading inside.

Dean cautiously turned to her as she paced. In bed, in the field, Dean was all bravado and machismo. In rare and awkward moments as emotional strife, he was… something else. He didn’t say anything, but he kept himself between her and the door, eyes trailing her every move.

“You just love this, don’t you?” she clipped, glaring at him as the seconds dragged toward 120. “Keeping me in line, making me do what I’m told.”

“Not like this,” he answered, his brow furrowed and jaw clenching.

The only word she could think of to describe Dean at that moment was soft. Except, Dean was anything but soft. Before she could question it further, Sam was rushing through the door with a load in his arms.

“Trish,” Jessica’s voice shook as she raced to meet Sam.

“Go!” Sam shouted, moving toward the exit. “We gotta go.”

“Is she-” Jessica started then felt Dean’s fingers wrap her bicep and pull.

“Now, Jess,” Dean growled, and they ran.

~~~~~~~

“You look like shit,” Jessica says once Dean’s close enough to touch.

He purses his lips to hide a grin. “I dunno,” he shrugged, and his eyes sparked. “Thought chicks dig scars.”

The riot starts to burn her from the inside out. Jessica swallows a smart comeback, takes a breath to calm her instincts. She wants to throw him to the ground, feel his skin under her hands and his tongue twisting with hers, wants his hands gripping her perfectly too tight and tearing at her clothes. She wants him, but she also wants to fucking pummel his ass.

Jessica rolls her eyes. “So,” she begins. “I’m here. Gimme the lowdown.”

Dean nods to the side to beckon her to follow and she falls into step beside him. “You know the drill, routine fucking mission, we split up, he never makes it to the rendezvous point.” Dean sighs as he leads her inside his spartan digs. “Drink?” he asks, and she nods.

It’s eerie how close to home his story is and it isn’t fair that they have to go through it again. “Where were you?” she asks, watching him pull the cork from a bottle of whiskey and hand it over.

“Quadrant Five, just outside old Boston.”

Jessica accepts the proffered bottle. “Vamps,” she says with a sneer before taking a pull from the dusty bottle.

Dean hums affirmatively. “That was the mission, but why nab Sammy? It doesn’t make sense, they gotta know I’ll fuckin’ murder them.” The irony of the entire situation is not lost on Jessica, and Dean catches himself just as the words pop out of his mouth.

~~~~~~~

“What were they?” Jessica asked. Her mouth was lined with cotton and her cheeks stained with her tears and her sister’s blood. Trish’s hand was cold in hers and her eyes were lifeless.

“Vamps,” Sam answered. “And we still don’t know if they tracked us here.”

“Bring it,” Jessica answered. “I’ll take out every last one of ‘em.”

Dean remained quiet and distant yet ever watchful, but Jessica couldn’t be brought to question his motives any more than she could before they’d found Trish. Her mind was filled with rage and plans of revenge.

“We have to be smart about this, Jess,” Sam said. “We can’t just be out for blood.”

“Gotta side with him on this,” Dean said quietly, and Jessica shot him a glare.

“And… not that I wanna be the one to say this,” Sam continued. “But this is part of the gig – we know this.”

“Oh, okay, Prince I Gotta Find The Demon Who Murdered My Mommy, I guess the rules are different for you.”

“Fuck you, Jessica,” Sam snapped. “This is not the same thing and you know it.”

“Fuck  _me_?!?” Jessica stood, leaving her sister’s body to roll toward to the back of the couch.

“Hey,” Dean barked, pushing away from the kitchen counter to stand between the two. “Let’s just… chill, alright?”

“Fuck you both,” she muttered, sitting back down and dragging Trish into her lap.

Sam scoffed and left the room in a huff.

Dean sighed heavily and sat in the armchair adjacent to the couch. “I’ll build the pyre,” he said. “You wanna wrap her?” he asked, and she nodded without looking at him.

She couldn’t look at him. She was so angry – at life and Sam and  _fucking Dean_  being calm and quiet and kind.

“Take your time,” he said, before standing to head out to the woods, leaving Jessica confused and alone.

~~~~~~~

Jessica clears her throat and shuffles her feet. “Well, we go back,” she says, handing Dean the bottle. “Retrace your steps and do some arm twisting. You’re great at arm twisting if memory serves.” There’s a double entendre there, they both hear it, see it hanging in the air between them.

Dean swallows a full mouth of whiskey and sucks his teeth. “That I am,” he says, holding her gaze and the fire in her belly licks and licks away.

“Why me, though?” she asks. “Why not call Gordon the Vamp Whisperer?” She rolls her eyes.

“Gordon’s a dick and I’m not convinced it’s vamps that got him,” Dean answers, handing her the bottle again. “That’s why I need you.” A smile plays at the edges of his eyes and mouth. “You and that big detective brain of yours.”

“Smooth talker,” she says, tipping the bottle back once more.

~~~~~~~

After the funeral, smelling like smoke and burned flesh, Jessica needed a release. She wanted to fight or fuck or both, and she thanked god that she had Dean Winchester to fall back on – rough hands and a dirty mouth, big cock and strong hips and thighs.

“I need you to fuck me,” she said, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him in for a bruising kiss.

His face was smudged with soot, and he smelled like splintered wood and ash, whiskey and sweat. He braced his hands on the door frame to their bedroom and let her yank his shirt open, scrape fingernails over his slick chest and pull his bottom lip between her teeth until they both tasted blood.

“Fuck me till I scream,” she said, jerking at the front of his jeans, pulling him all the way into the room.

Then her face was in his hands, his fingers in her hair, as he kissed her, backing her toward the bed. His tongue twisted with hers, deep and way too slow. “C’mon,” she grit her teeth. “Do it rough. Hurt me.”

Dean gripped her hair and pulled her head back then scraped his teeth over her throat. Every touch was deliberate and almost gentle. Jessica’s head was spinning.

She dropped to her knees and opened his pants, pulled his hard cock out and licked the tip, squeezed the base. “Fuck my throat,” she said, grabbing his hands and putting them on her head. “Hard. I wanna choke on this big dick.”

~~~~~~~

“Gotta admit,” Dean says as they cruise along the highway toward Quadrant Five. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.” He eyes her sideways, that oddly uncertain look coloring his face.

Since the night Trish died, Jessica hasn’t known which way is up with Dean. That fact alone would’ve been enough to make her leave, but-

“But I’m glad you did,” he says, sliding his sunglasses into place, covering his eyes from her.

She is utterly baffled by this kinder, gentler Winchester. And she doesn’t necessarily trust her feelings, either.

“Yeah,” she says. “Glad I can… help.”

The conversation is awkward, the air feels stale and hot and it’s almost winter. Jessica scratches at her wrists and shifts her weight in the seat until Dean finally pops in a Zeppelin cassette to fill the void.

~~~~~~~

“Jess,” Dean said, threading his fingers through her hair. “Come up here.” He urged her to her feet. “I’ll fuck you, but not like this.”

“Since when are you Prince Charming?” she snarked. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

Dean sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. His composure shifted slightly but still lacked the fire she craved, the rage.

“Maybe I should go find Sam,” she said. “He’s enough of an asshole today to fuck me the way I want it.”

Dean’s eyes flared. “Take your fuckin’ clothes off and get on the bed,” he said, and Jessica hid her grin. “Jesus, you and that fucking mouth.”

Jessica did as she was told and watched as he kicked his pants aside and removed his shirt. Then he was crawling onto the bed. He gripped her ankles and pulled until she was flat on her back, legs spread wide, and he dove in.

Dean was good at everything carnal – everything that she knew of, anyway, and she really thought she knew all of his tricks. She was wrong about that gross assumption.

He took his time and it took her off-guard. He licked her slow and deep, thick tongue flat over her folds and her clit, then slipping inside. His hands held her open then draped her knees over his shoulders when he decided to push two fingers inside her.

“Dean,” she whispered, and her breath shook. She rolled her head to the side and pushed her fingers through his thick mess of hair.

What he was doing to her was not something she ever expected from Dean. The sheer pleasure of it, the basic animalistic quality of pure pleasure, yes, but not the focused tenderness. She never expected Dean Winchester to be a generous lover.

She was rolling and trembling with need. It was all in slow motion, it seemed, heat pooling in the center of her body, webbing outward. She was liquid and molten and tingling all at once. She couldn’t breathe right, gasping. She couldn’t even reconcile in her mind what it was he was even doing that made her feel like she was about to lose control of everything.

She was crying. And then she was aflame and coming.

“Dean!” she shouted, planting her feet in the mattress and bucking into his face.

She was panting and the room was so dark by the time he worked his way up her body, settled between her legs and pushed inside her. “God, you’re so hard,” she breathed, wrapping her legs around his hips and touching him everywhere.

He kissed her lips and her jaw, her throat. He felt bigger somehow than ever. He felt harder and thicker, languidly stretching her, pushing in and pulling out at an agonizingly slow pace, but fuck he felt so good. So good it blew her mind. She never knew…

He was quietly taking her apart, piece by piece, and she was a mess, sobbing under his heft, under his heat. His mouth on hers, his hands holding her wrists to the bed, his hips grinding between her thighs, his cock sliding, sliding, sliding solid and blistering.

“I’m gonna come,” she whimpered – fucking  _whimpered_  – and she was wet with her own cum and tears and sweat. She came one more time, clenching long and hard, pulling him down with her.

~~~~~~~

“Oh, Old Boston, how much I have  _not_  missed you,” Jessica groans as she climbs from the Impala.

“Still a shithole,” Dean mutters, scanning the area.

It’s dusk and the air outside the car is cool. Jessica’s just glad the trip is over and she can stretch her legs and put a bit of distance between herself and Dean. They’re armed and ready to search the location where Dean last saw his brother. But they aren’t prepared for what comes next.


	4. Lighting Matches Just To Swallow Up The Flame

The place is rigged with snares and booby traps, which two seasoned fighters such as Dean and Jessica should’ve expected going in. Whether it be her preoccupation with everything that is Dean, not seeing him since the night they found Trish’s body or just plain bad luck, she doesn’t see the wire as Dean trips it, stepping inside the building.

Before she can put the sound of the bolt thunking into his side and the sight of his body slumping to the ground together in her mind like a bad thing, she takes a hit to the thigh as well.

“Oof.” She drops to her knees and scans the area.

“Winchester,” she breathes. “You still with me?”

“Yup,” he grunts, the pain clear and present in his tone.

She shakes her head. “Good, stay put,” she says before inspecting the bolt in her thigh.

For the most part, Jessica isn’t a fan of the superpower gig – its origin, its implications, the fact that it so entirely sets her apart from the rest of humanity – but there are advantages like accelerated healing and a high pain threshold.

She draws a breath then yanks the bolt from her thigh, tearing through muscle and flesh as it goes. Then she carefully crawls to where Dean has fallen. She can see the blood pooling around him before he’s even within arm’s length.

“Fuck,” she mutters. His wound is bad – much worse than hers and he doesn’t have the luxury to heal quickly or to feel less pain. “Leave it to you to get a gut wound on a reconnaissance mission.”

Dean shifts his gaze up to meet hers and wiggles in place to face her as well as possible in his predicament. As she settles by his side, she assesses the damage.

“Recon?” he says with a wince as she pokes and prods. “Thought we were guns ablazin’ today.”

His attempted joke falls flat. He’s lost a lot of blood already. The bolt that hit him has a wider head than the one that hit her and a razor edge.

Why couldn’t that one have hit her?

Jessica is still so fucking pissed at him, even after more than a year, for taking Sam’s side against her, for holding her back, but god knows she cannot lose him; not like this.

“You two are so unbelievably stupid,” she says as she pushes his jacket out of the way. “Should just leave you here to bleed out, head back home to my cat.”

The way he looks at her then – the light shading his eyes a pale jade, he looks like those old pictures. She can see the boy, the youth and innocence, the kindness, underneath the trauma and pain and scars that she knows all too well. The way he looks at her then takes her breath from her lungs.

“You got a cat?” he asks, equally out of breath, brow furrowed and sweating.

She breathes deep and gives him a small semblance of a smile. “Yeah, I have a cat,” she answers, ripping his t-shirt open then peeling it from the already coagulating blood around the wound. “Knew you and your allergic ass wouldn’t be coming around any time soon and he was hungry, so…” She shrugs.

~~~~~~~

“I took care of it,” Sam said, turning his back and setting to work on cleaning his weapons.

“You-” Jessica was bewildered. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He couldn’t have meant what she thought he meant.

She and Dean had spent more than two hours in bed after Trish’s burial. She hadn’t even thought to wonder where Sam had gone off to. She hadn’t thought that he’d take her move.

“You took care of it.” She stared at his back as her skin broke into pricks and sweat. Her heartbeat picked up pace when she felt Dean move from her side into the middle of the room, effectively inserting himself between her and his brother.

“What the _fuck_ does that mean, Sam?” she asked, her voice vibrating in her own ears.

“It means,” Sam said, turning to face her, closed off but pointed as he wiped his hatchet clean. “I called Gordon and Rufus and went back, took out the nest. Quick and quiet.” He gave her a look of finality then turned back to tend to his other weapons.

Her heart pounded so hard that she was sure it would fly from her chest. She felt wild. How could he take that from her? He had to know how important it was for her to take the nest out herself.

Then a thought occurred to her bright as the sun. She slowly turned on Dean.

“Did you know about this?” she asked, breathless and filling with cold rage. “Is that why you just _made love to me_ like fucking Fabio or something?”

Dean shakes his head lightly, keeping an uneasy eye on his brother. “But-”

“But, what?” Jessica started to move, and Dean mirrored her actions the same way he had earlier in the evening when they went to find Trish, his full attention turning to her, straight and tall and ready for battle.

“You’re gonna defend this too?” she asked. “Just like going in and getting her dead fucking body like I can’t carry my own sister like I can’t avenge her fucking death on my own?”

Jessica could hear her voice rising and breaking in her ears. She could see its impact on Dean’s face, but Sam… Sam just kept on cleaning his weapons.

“You two…” she seethed and paced. “You two and your fucking martyr complexes are out-fucking-standing.”

“Just a min-” Dean started toward her.

“No.” She shook her head and pointed at him hard. “I’m not listening anymore. I’m not sitting here ineffectual and pathetic, your little fuck toy and nothing else.” Jessica glared at Dean, and he winced as she paced.

She believed that he really had been distracting her. He really just let his brother take that away from her.

“You know, I know you’re afraid of me and you fucking should be,” she said. That got Sam’s attention and he slowly turned to face her. “But I will not sit back and let you two dictate my life anymore.”

Dean shifted in tighter as Sam moved toward her.

“When have either of us ever dictated what you do ever?” Sam challenged. “Tell me, please, because I’m at a loss. You come in here, superpowered with a god damned chip on your shoulder, and… what are we supposed to do?”

“Hey, don’t speak for me right now,” Dean said. He was tense, Jessica could see it in every muscle of his body. It was defensive, guilty, she just knew it. He was afraid because she’d figured it all out.

“Fine,” Sam said, throwing his hands up. “What was I supposed to do? I need to stay safe, keep Dean safe, you.” He paused for an effect that was lost on Jessica.

She scoffed. “ _You_ keep _me_ safe,” she said with an arched brow.

Since when did she need two mere men for anything let alone to keep her safe?

Sam sighed with exasperation. “You’re not just superpowered Jessica, you’re off the hook emotional and rash-”

“Oh, and your brother’s the picture of stability?” Jessica started to pace again, her mind racing with the possible scenarios.

Had Dean sent Sam to do it? Had Dean made the call himself?

“What the _fuck_ , Jessica?” Dean says, turning on her.

“No, no,” Sam said. “We aren’t talking about Dean right now. But believe me when I say I’ve had to reign him in as often as he has me – that’s the way this shit works.”

“You’re so full of shit, Sam,” Jessica said. “You think you’re in control. _No one is_.” She very pointedly glared at Dean. “None of us. We’re all part of the machine, but you two think you’re above it all.”

Both brothers squared their stances toward her. She was fine with it. It’d be a fair fight; she wouldn’t power up, she’d play clean.

“AWOL, human, special forces, touched by mother fucking god herself.” Jessica waved her hand in the air with a flourish.

“Jessica,” Dean gritted through his teeth. “If you got a problem with me, let’s go, but this is about Trish.”

“Oh, fuck you, Dean,” Jessica laughed. “You and Sam are one and the same. You both think you can keep me where you want me till you need me for something and then-”

“No one wants to keep you, trust me,” Sam scoffed and turned his back again.

Jessica’s ire rapidly rose to boil, then, and before she knew it, Sam was in her clutches. She threw him up to the ceiling then let him drop.

Dean tackled her from the side before she could reach Sam’s groaning form, and they tumbled across the floor.

~~~~~~~

Jessica doesn’t want to be touching him like this. More accurately, she’s afraid of what will happen if she keeps touching him. In the old days, Sam would nurse both Dean and Jessica, and Dean and Jessica would alternate caring for Sam.

Jessica and Dean have always been cautious of how and when they touched. One careless swipe of a palm, four fingers and a thumb gripping just right – one thing leads to another and the next thing you know they’re in a power struggle fuck match on the floor. Now is the furthest from an appropriate time for that.

“Give it to me straight,” Dean says.

She can see muscle and bone threaten to spill out the gap of skin whenever she lifts the blood-soaked rag from the wound. She was able to remove the bolt, but the gash is gnarly.

Dean’s drinking whiskey from the bottle, as one acceptably does in these situations, but she snatches it from his hand. “Relax, tough guy,” she commands, setting the bottle aside. “It’s bad, but we’ve seen worse.”

Dean’s nostrils flare as he inhales deeply through his nose. She turns to rifle through his bag and hers for some medical supplies, something for an eight-inch slice under the ribcage.

Dean closes his eyes and leans his head back on the chair as Jessica starts to clean the area. Sometimes she wishes she had healing powers, like real ones, where she could just lay a hand on him and he’d be good as new. Then again, if that were possible, they wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

“Okay,” she says, locating foam wound sealant. She figures if she can just get the wound closed up she can get a better look at it when they get the fuck out of here. “This shit stings so-”

“Just do it-”

Jessica cuts him off as she covers the wound with the foam, and Dean arches up off the chair.

“Fucking _ow_!” He glares at her.

“I told you it’d hurt!” she says. “Stop being a sensitive ballsack and let me get this done.”

“Whiskey,” Dean lolls his head back again and thrusts out a hand.

Jessica tries not to let his vulnerability, his softness, warm her insides. She doesn’t need this side of him peeking out from under 14-months of resentment. She needs him to be strong and sharp and layered with venom.

~~~~~~~

Jessica’s reflexes and strength were unparalleled, but Dean got the jump on her. Once they stopped rolling across the floor, he straddled her, elbows pinned to her sides and a knife at her throat.

“Don’t fucking move.” His voice was deep and dark as a grave and the blade was cool and sharp pressed against her larynx. “Don’t speak or even fucking breathe.”

Two beats of a stare-down pass and Jessica melts into the floor, emotionally defeated, knowing… knowing this was the last straw. She knew then that he was done with her.

“Sammy?” Dean kept his eyes glued to her and his full weight compressing her ribcage and spleen. “Talk to me.”

She could hear Sam breathing, but he didn’t reply. She felt the knife’s edge break her skin, felt the blood begin to trickle. She saw the raw rage and fear in Dean’s eyes.

“He’s still breathing,” she whispered.

“What. Did. I. Say,” he growled and pressed harder.

Jessica swallowed and let the knife slide deeper into her skin. Then Sam’s strangled voice answered, “I’m okay.”

Relief like she’d never seen washed over Dean’s face and his entire body relaxed while simultaneously bounding up and away from her, leaving her to bleed and cough on the floor.

Jessica could hear a quiet exchange of words, she could smell blood that wasn’t her own. She pushed herself to sit then stand. She crossed the room and entered her and Dean’s bedroom. It took only a few minutes for her to pack what she needed – a few t-shirts, weapons, her jacket. When she returned to the living room, bag secured over her shoulder, she barely glanced at the brothers where they sat on the couch, Dean tending to his brother’s wounds – wounds she’d inflicted.

She didn’t hear words if any were directed to her as she twisted the knob and walked out the door.


	5. Harder Than A Bullet Could Hit Ya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we’re all caught up, so no more flashbacks. From here on out, we’re in present tense.

Dean dozes off after a bit of whiskey and Jessica lets him rest. She looks out the window at the grey sky, thinking.

Dean was right when he said that vamps wouldn’t take Sam; they’d know better. Monsters don’t fuck with the Winchesters – ever – not since Mary’s death. So, who did? Who would? And why?

She tries to track Sam’s GPS, knowing the futility of it; Dean has surely done this a million times. Yet… she picks something up.

“Dean?” Jessica turns and Dean stirs, groggy and in pain.

He winces. “Yeah,” he says, pushing himself to sit up, hissing.

“You tracked Sam’s GPS, right?” she asks, crossing the room, staring down at the blinking dot, indicating his location, less than a mile away.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, no, it was off or scrambled. Tried multiple times.”

Then Jessica turns her phone screen to show Dean what she can’t believe she’s seeing. “Well,  _someone’s_  got his phone. And the GPS is on.”

Dean sits all the way up and forward, eyes wide, reaching for her phone. “What the fuck?”

Jessica hands him the device and watches the emotions roll over his features. “I dunno, but that’s-”

“Not even a mile from here,” Dean finishes her statement, looking up, suddenly very alert and seemingly ready for a fight. He stands and hands her back her phone. “On foot,” he says. “We gotta be quiet about it.”

They’re talking like it hasn’t been forever like it was just yesterday that they did this kind of thing. They have always moved, thought, and struck in tandem. As a team, they were almost unbeatable.

“You know it’s a trap,” she says, pocketing her phone, well aware that he knows, that he’s thinking exactly what she’s thinking.

“Fuckin’ A, right, it’s a trap,” he says, shrugging into his jacket and grabbing his bag. “Breadcrumbs. You taught me that.” He winks.

“Fuckin’ A, right,” she says reaching for her own bag. “Let’s do this, Winchester.”

They’re more careful this time. When they reach the building emitting Sam’s GPS signal, they go in stealth mode. “Recon, get me?” Jessica whispers to Dean and he nods, palming his side.

They take two separate directions but keep each other in sight at all times. It feels like that old shoe analogy, falling into step and all that. When they find Sam’s phone, it’s lying in the middle of the room. Jessica shakes her head in warning. Dean nods but looks antsy.

Jessica can see that he wants that phone like he needs air. She sighs and rolls her eyes before getting on all fours and crawling toward it as Dean paces along one wall.

There are no booby traps this time. She snatches the phone from its conspicuous place, rolls toward the door and Dean follows.

On the way to the car, Dean sends as much data to their encrypted server as possible before pulling the chip and GPS from the phone, snapping it in half, and scattering the pieces.

“That was too easy,” he says, pain lacing his voice again as he slumps into the passenger seat and to the side, holding his ribs as Jessica climbs behind the wheel.

She thinks about all the times she’s seen Dean wounded and all the ways he does or doesn’t show pain. As wounds go, this is a bad one, but she really has seen him worse and still fighting. This is fatigue - emotional and physical.

“It was,” she agrees as she begins to catalog his actions and reactions, his choices and the way he deals with consequences, the way a fight or even a simple trigger can set him on a path – she matches them all up with her own ways.

This is all too easy, and not just the phone. Being with Dean is easy. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Maybe some things are supposed to be easy for a change.

One of the last things Trish said to her was:  _“You and Dean Winchester are one and the same, Jess. Maybe you’re just not ready, so you hold him at arm’s length – or he does? I dunno… But, I just… I hope you figure it out.”_

They get back to the safehouse, the Winchesters’ place, whatever, and Jessica helps him out of the car. She’s gentle, and he throws her a  _wtf_  look and a confused smile, but they don’t say a lot of words. There are a few hisses from Dean and a couple of variations of “just let me help you, tough guy” before they finally reach the apartment and are safely behind the door.

Jessica deposits him on the sofa and looks around. Not much has changed since the last time she was there. In fact, there’s still a webbed dent in the ceiling from where she tried to throw Sam through the roof. She shakes her head and moves toward the kitchen.

“Whiskey?” she asks, like Dean’s going to say no. He scoffs in answer and she chuckles.

She finds the whiskey right where it always is – in plain sight – and grabs a couple of glasses from the counter before returning and finding a seat next to him on the sofa.

“So,” she says, leaning forward, filling each short glass pretty close to the rim then handing one to Dean. “The way I see it…” She pauses to take a long pull from her glass, and Dean watches, sipping his own. “We download all the shit you sent to your server, and I spend the night researching while you sleep this off. We regroup once you’re rested and I’ve found Sam.” She grins, mock triumphant, knowing exactly how he’ll react.

Dean glares at her – it’s playful, but he is not taking the bench she’s nudging his way. “The way I see it,” he starts, swinging a leg up on the couch, brushing her thigh with his boot, not too subtly. “I download this shit,  _we_  research,” he licks his lips and lets his eyes wander her features for just a second. “We get some rest then head out fresh in the morning.”

He brings gaze back to hers and his glass to his lips. She watches him tongue the side of the glass before taking the edge between his lips and letting the liquid slide inside his mouth, his tongue dancing in the sweet, smoky liquor.

The last of her resolve delicately, quietly caves. “’Get some rest’ wouldn’t happen to be code for ‘fuck’, would it?” Jessica asks, dropping a hand to his boot.

It’s been too long. She’s had a few rough and tumbles over the months, yeah, but Dean… Dean’s always been exactly what she needed when she needed it. She wonders if maybe he needs her right now.

Dean stares at her, his chest rising and falling with his breath. “Can’t promise anything with this gut wound, but…” His eyes are  _pleading_ , and Jessica leans in.

She moves slow and steady, unlaces his boots, flicks her lashes up to watch him. He looks soft and warm. She wants to feel that warmth, that softness she’s only known once but now craves. She wants to show him what she wants – what she’s always wanted.

She thinks – now – that it’s what he’s always wanted, too.

Jessica pulls Dean to his feet, shrugs her jacket to the floor and pushes his from his shoulders. When she cups his cheek and runs a thumb over the scar from his forehead to his cheekbone, he nuzzles into her hand, and her heart cracks open. She has to swallow the whimper that threatens to spill from that crack.

Then she’s kissing him, slow, deep, tasting. She’s leading the charge and he’s following, his hands on her hips, thumbs brushing up under her tank top, fingers rhythmically squeezing. “Bed, Jess,” he mutters. “Please.”

She drags in a sob and her eyes blur. She’s thankful for the dark, that he can’t see how hard he’s hit her. Fourteen-months of anger and resentment and regret and grieving – he feels so good under her hands. He tastes so good. He’s eager and compliant at the same time as she lays him down, pulls his t-shirt over his head.

She tells him to lie back so she can get his jeans off. Once she’s done, he scoots to the middle of the bed, wincing as he props himself up, watching her strip then climb over him.

“How’s it been a year?” he asks, his voice quiet as he runs the pads of his fingers along her sharp collarbone, grips her knee with his other hand and slides his palm up her naked thigh. He looks up at her, uncertain, vulnerable.

“A year and two months,” she whispers, tracing the new and old scars that cover his bare skin.

“Feels like more,” he replies, closing his eyes, a pained expression twisting his features.

She straddles his hips only, tries not to touch his wound. The HUMAN-barcode tattoo on his clavicle is faded to grey, he’s had it so long. Her fingers ghost over it, and he rolls them to their sides – to his side that isn’t ripped to shreds.

“It was stupid,” he says, pushing her hair out of her eyes then kissing her. “ _I_ was stupid.” He pulls her thigh over his hip and she feels his length stroking where she’s wet – so wet.

She’s so turned on and turned around all at once. She wants to  _fall_ , but not apart or away from him anymore. She wants to fall right into him. She wants him like this, like that, the way they were, and the way they are.

“I’m sorry,” she says, holding his jaw in her hand as she thrusts forward, feeling him slide over her clit. “I want-”

“Me too,” he breathes into her mouth, holding her steady as he pushes inside her. “Let’s just…” He presses his forehead to hers and lets her move, roll her hips, anchoring her hands on his shoulders.

“Alright,” she says, feeling that good, solid slide of him, his scent permeating her pores – she missed smelling him on her skin.

His fingers are tangled in waves of jet and wrapped around the back of her neck, and her nails are digging into the triangle of muscle below the nape of his neck as they both come, groaning and sobbing into each other’s mouths.


	6. My Heart Is Gold And My Hands Are Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends, this is where one of the bigger warnings comes in, gentle readers. Please remember this is an AU where technology is a powerful thing, but magic isn’t - not like we know in the SPN universe - and that God was never on their side.

“Looks like a smash and grab, but…” Jessica says as she analyzes the video feed they uploaded from Sam’s phone. “It isn’t. These guys – they aren’t idiots, but they wanted it to look that way.”

Jessica looks up to where Dean’s at the kitchen island, stitching himself up. The foam sealant seemed to work better than they’d anticipated. After they showered this morning and took a better look at the wound, it had started healing pretty well overnight.

“Military op,” Dean says quietly, not looking up from his task.

Jessica figured as much herself but didn’t want to say it just yet.

Sooner or later – turns out much, much later than was probably reasonable – the Winchesters’ leaving their assigned posts was bound to catch up with them. And  _catching up with them_  isn’t simply dragging them back to post. It’s punishment, and it’s harsh.

“What d’you wanna do?” she asks as she stands to cross the room and join him at the island. She runs her fingers through his hair, and he instinctively nudges into her caress as he sets the stitching materials aside, done with his wound.

Dean grips her hips and pulls her into him, resting his head against her breast, breathing her in. “I dunno,” he answers.

But he does know. She knows that he knows. He’s just so tired. He doesn’t want to do what he knows they  _have_  to do.

Jessica nods, stroking his hair, his neck, shoulders, down his back. She’s always wanted to give him everything and now she can – now he’ll let her, and he’ll give to her in return. If Trish’s death and their subsequent separation did anything for them, it was this.

“I’ll find him,” Jessica says, curling over him, sheltering him, holding him as close as she can. “I’ll find him.” She repeats her promise, and then they’re kissing.

~~~~~~~

“He’s in there,” she says, low and quiet, lying flat on her belly in the brush next to Dean.

Dean focuses his rifle scope on the window to find his brother.

Sam’s tied to a chair – arms and wrists bound tightly behind him, knees to ankles fastened to the legs of the chair. He’s barefoot and bare-chested and he’s been worked over pretty good from what Jessica can see. He looks unconscious.

“All the times I wanted to take clippers to that head of his…” Dean says, looking away from the sight before them and closing his eyes.

His little brother’s covered in blood and gore, open, fetid wounds, and there are patches along the side of his head that they can see where hair has been ripped from the root. He’s still breathing, though, Jessica can see and hear that much. He looks like death, but maybe…

“Your call,” she says, quietly pushing up to all fours as Dean does the same. They’re similarly armed – Dean with slightly more firepower, as Jessica has considerably more pure power – blades and rifles and handguns.

“At least a dozen inside and out,” Dean says, triple-checking his artillery.

Jessica waits. He isn’t going to ask. So she says it.

“I’ll go in,” she says. “Any surprises, demons or monsters not showing up on heat signatures? I can handle ‘em. And I can get Sam out faster.”

Dean nods, refusing to look her in the eye. He’s never been one to ask for help or even accept it, but right now, he’s desperate and she is more than willing to oblige.

After all was said and done, what Sam and Dean did for her with Trish was right and good. They did it to get it done, quick and clean like Sam said, and to keep her safe and sane. Without that time apart, she’d never have been able to understand that and she wouldn’t be here now to return the favor.

  
“Cover me,” she says, turning toward the building. Then Dean’s fingers wrap her wrist and she halts, turns to look him in the eye.

Anguish, anxiety, fear – it’s all there. Dean’s stripped to the bone with her. She’s seen him like this before, she just never recognized that he was vulnerable and showing her those things before now.

“Jess,” he starts.

She places a hand over his. “I’ll get him out, I promise,” she says, squeezing his hand.

Before she can turn away, Dean snags her eyes and holds them. “Be careful,” he says.

“You know I will,” she says, pulling away from him and turning back to her path.

~~~~~~~

The thing about being given superpowers by the government is that the government knows everything about them and how to find or create their own brand of Kryptonite. In fact, they probably already have the Kryptonite before they give the powers away.

The whole thing sucks ass. But Jessica takes out three armed guards and one undetected demon before the trap set especially for her is tripped.

“Did you think we didn’t know Dean would send his  _dog_  in after his baby brother?” she taunts. “We have a plan, Jessica.”

 _She_  is the one who conducted the experiments, who murdered Jessica’s mother in the process, who empowered Jessica as she is today, who trained her.  _She_  is a fucking monster. She’s Dr. Hess.

“Wow,” Jessica drolls, as her eyes carefully inspect Sam Winchester more closely that she was able to through her rifle scope. “You’re The Brain with no Pinky, just one big ball of superiority and rage.”

Jessica cocks her jaw and looks Hess in the eye again. “But, ya know, it was never just Pinky’s idiocy that fucked up The Brain’s plans.” Jessica pauses and shrugs. “At the end of the day – the moral to the story as they say - it was The Brain’s arrogance and short-sightedness that truly thwarted  _his plans_. But I suppose you wouldn’t see that, what with the short-sightedness.”

Jessica hears a weak huff of laughter from across the room. It’s from Sam and it gives her a small bit of breath she needs to reinforce herself. He raises his head just enough to make eye contact, as swollen as his are. He looks worse than she thought. Her eyes sting as his bloody lips crack with a small smile.

“Jess,” he whispers, blood on his teeth and chin and throat.

“Hey, buddy,” she breathes back, holding on, trying to keep her rollercoaster of emotions in check trying not to let Hess see just how afraid Jessica is.

“Funny,” Dr. Hess replies. “Always so funny. You and Dean, always cracking jokes when you can’t do anything else.”

She rounds Jessica, and Jessica feels the hair stand on end in her follicles. She keeps her eyes on Sam, keeps breathing. Then the alarms are sounding and her heart drops into her stomach.

“Dean,” she whispers under her breath.

The sound system in the room crackles to life. “Dr. Hess! We’ve got five more men down – fatalities, ma’am – and a second breach.”

Jessica feels Dr. Hess tense behind her as she finishes rounding to her front. “He’s only human!” Hess shouts into the air. “Get him and bring him to me.”

There’s a long pause before the timid voice answers. “Yes, ma’am.”

Dr. Hess starts to pace, and Jessica tests her bonds for the umpteenth time. “Jessica, you can’t get out of them, so just stop trying,” Dr. Hess snaps, clearly irritated. Things are going far from the way Dr. Hess wanted, apparently, and it gives Jessica hope while also amusing her.

“These damned Winchesters, huh?” Jessica starts. “Always throwin’ a monkey wrench into somethin’ or other.” Jessica shakes her head smirking at Sam, and he smirks back.

“You can also stop trying to get on my good side,” Dr. Hess says, turning on her heel. “I know whose side you’re on, Jessica Jones.” She turns her ire back to Jessica in full force. “Even after they threw you away like garbage you came running back like a trained monkey.”

Jessica remains unfazed. She’s beyond all of this now. She is – because  _she_  is. No one person will ever take her back there, where she thought she was beneath it all, where she thought Dean didn’t want her or care about her. No one will ever do that to her again.

“Whew,” she whistles, shaking her head. “You’re super into analogies. I’m Dean’s dog, trash,  _and_  his trained monkey. Anything else? These are great!”

“Whore, punching bag, cum dumpster,” a male voice joins in, grunting as he drags a bloodied and clearly very pissed off Dean Winchester into the room, throwing him to his knees. “Shall I go on? I can be a bit less… genteel than the good doctor here.”

“Oh, Arthur,” Jessica replies. She sees Dean’s eyes on Sam, see his body relax and his scarred and bloody face bloom with a tiny bit of hope. “You’re such a tease.”

Truth be told, Arthur Ketch, unlike Dr. Hess with all her tools and devices and methods of destruction, happens to make Jessica very uneasy. He’s unpredictable, loyal to no one, and just as deadly as she or the Winchesters in his own way. She doesn’t let it show and never has, but she bets he knows it that he knocks her off-kilter.

“Where are we?” Dr. Hess asks Ketch. Looking down at Dean where he studies Sam closely.

“Down by 10,” he answers then scans their captors from Dean at his feet to Jessica across the room to Sam to his left, slumped in a chair. “They made a good effort, I’d say.” He smiles that skeevy smile that makes Jessica want to hurl.

The room is tense and quiet as Dr. Hess and Ketch turn their backs and move to the far end of the room. Jessica searches for Dean’s eyes. When she finds them, they’re burning into hers. He’s no longer fearful or vulnerable looking; he looks like the very second he’s unbound, he’ll snap the first neck within reach. And then he smirks.

And fuck if that doesn’t get her going. That’s the second wind she needed.

She holds Dean’s gaze and mouths, “Hess.”

If Dean can take out Hess, they can use Ketch. Ketch will do anything to be on the winning team, and without Hess, Jessica and the Winchesters  _are_  the winning team.

Dean nods, works at his bindings. He’s having better luck with his than she is with hers because top-secret government shit… It kind of pisses her off. She feels like she should want to take Hess out herself, but it’s a stale want. And after Trish, Jessica has realized that kind of revenge is hollow at best.

Mostly she’s pissed off because she wants the action, and she wants it now.

As she watches Dean get clear of his bonds while Hess and Ketch still babble at each other with their backs turned, she rolls her eyes and glares at him. He rubs his wrists, snaps his gum, and winks at her before turning lightning fast on his knees, aiming that gorgeous mother of pearl-handled Colt and blowing the back of Hess’s head open.

Before the dust has settled so-to-speak, Ketch is rifling through Hess’s pockets.

“Took you long enough,” he says, aiming a small handheld bobble at Jessica and she’s suddenly released. “You’ve barely time to get free from here. Maybe three minutes.”

He looks at his watch and reaches in his pocket. “I don’t have time to explain but suffice to say that Hess had been compromised. This,” he waves his hand over Sam, distress marring his features. “This was  _never_  the plan.” He looks back at Jessica and Dean as they each reach for Sam to untie him from the chair.

Ketch extends a hand to Dean, stopping his progression toward his brother. “I’m afraid it may be too late for the antidote, but,” he speaks quietly as he hands a small vial to Dean. “Give this to him via injection. I trust you have needles in your vehicle.” He takes another breath and shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.

Then they hear footsteps, loud and heavy, dragging.

“Hit me,” he says to Jessica. “And make it look real, then go. They’re coming, and I will not be able to hold them off.”

Dean pockets the vial then starts working on Sam’s bindings. Jessica rounds on Ketch and he’s out cold, feet from Hess’s body. Jessica gently pushes Dean out of the way to tear Sam clean from the chair before fireman carrying him to the window and dropping two stories to the ground. Dean scales down more slowly a few bricks at a time then drops into a squat.

“Sammy?” Dean says, pushing Sam’s hair from his face. “You with us?”

“Us…” Sam mutters, a smile playing on his lips. “Jess… is back.”

Dean’s eyes are frantic when he looks up at Jessica. She nods to silently tell Dean they have to move, and he covers her as they run to the Impala. There’s gunfire, bolts, fucking grenades behind them until they reach the tech-cloaked car. They still only have mere minutes before the army catches up.

Jessica pushes Sam into the backseat. He’s lifeless. He isn’t breathing. She swallows back a sob.

“Dean, get…” she sucks in air. “Get in and give him CPR or something. I’ll cover.”

Dean’s shaking his head. “He’s…” Dean’s white as a sheet, lips popping like a cherries in snow.

“Get in,” Jessica whispers, and she feels the tears on her cheeks. 

Sam is dead, the life drained slowly from his body over days. This isn’t The Princess Bride and there’s no magic cure. But she’s got to keep Dean occupied while she thinks.

“What am I gonna do?” he shouts, his fists clenched, and his face is wet.

Jessica can’t breathe. “Get in the car,” she says one last time.

Dean shakes his head again, he climbs in over his brother, sobbing, going through all the motions - CPR, praying to a God who’s never been on their side, screaming.

He’s screaming and they’re running out of time.

Jessica pulls in one last long breath. “Dean!” she shouts. “They’re coming.”

He pushes out of the back seat covered in his blood and Sam’s, wiping his face and his nose. He checks his weapons, slams the back door and rounds to the trunk to restock his ammo. When he looks up, there is raw murder in his eyes.

“Let ‘em come,” he growls, pressing the button on the cloaking device to protect Sam’s body in the car.

Jessica sniffs one last time, holds her head high. “Let’s do it, baby,” she says, turning toward the growing sound of an onslaught.


	7. Tales Of An Endless Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is dead, and Dean and Jess have to finish the battle.
> 
> Warnings: show level violence, innovative and unbelievable sexual position, gross schmoop (considering our characters), a cat, HEA

They just keep coming.

Jessica’s heart is in her throat and her blood is running icy-hot, putting her at the top of her game. She knows Dean feels the same way – adrenaline and rage driving him to tear monsters and military alike to shreds as they plow through the torrent.

Dean Winchester isn’t super-powered, but even the most drug-induced military or suped-up monster knows they’re in for a fight against him. Cautionary tales have been passed down and around about him, told to up-and-coming military and newly bred creatures. They are trained to  _fear him_  with or without his brother at his side.

And, now, with Sam tortured to death and growing cold in the back seat of the Impala – well, the troops are plainly facing  _the end_  of their existence.

Jessica snaps necks and rips hearts from chests, while Dean cuts their opponents clean in half and blows holes in their brains. They’re back to back, spinning and moving fast – so fast that this army of warriors and monsters and hybrids and other government experiments with less experience and less at stake don’t have even a moment to prepare.

She can hear Dean’s heart pounding. He grunts and growls like an animal and that pushes her further into her own primal mode.

“We got this,” she calls over her shoulder. “We fucking got this, Winchester.”

Then they hear it – the dragging and pounding of the biggest of the beasts. It was smart enough for whoever strategized this battle to have this thing bring up the rear. Honestly, Jessica’s shocked they have yet to see a tank or something else of equal brute force coming at them.

Ketch is behind that holdoff, she’s betting.

“What the  _fuck_?” Jessica mutters.

Dean doesn’t hesitate to retrieve a killer cocktail-filled grenade from his jacket. He pulls the pin with his teeth as he sprays his AK loaded with devil’s trap-carved silver bullets at a pack of human-looking entities.

The grenade explodes at the base of the giant 20 yards away. Jessica and Dean are both thrown by the blast. They tuck and roll under fire. When they come to a halt in a pile of brush, relatively near each other, they snag each other’s gaze and hold it – listening.

Rustling, groaning – no war cries, no dragging and pounding of monsters and machines. All that’s left are dying humans.

Dean’s nostrils flare from the stench of war – smoke, guts of humans and fiends.

His brother’s dead.

Trish is dead.

It’s just him and Jessica now.

He pushes up to stand and encourages Jessica to do the same. “Let’s finish this,” he says through his teeth.

They walk the battlefield, picking off the dying one by one – single bullets to the head. The adrenaline isn’t wearing off any time soon, even after the last soldier is put out of her misery.

They stand still and silent to catch their breath, then Jessica turns to Dean. “Lemme see your side.” Jessica reaches for Dean and he lets her pull clothes out of the way to inspect his wound. His eyes are drooping, tired, scanning the area still, and his body is rigid and pumped.

“Ripped wide open,” she says, reaching inside her jacket for the emergency sealant she used the day before. “Dammit.” She swipes a hand over the remaining blood, shakes the clinging mess from her hand then sprays over his wound.

“Anything broke?” Dean asks, futilely pushing her hair away from her forehead.  “You and this mess of hair.” He smiles fondly.

They’re both sweating messes and Jessica’s never been one to tie her hair back before a fight.

“I can’t tell yet,” she mutters, looking him over. “How d’you feel?” She flicks her gaze up to meet his, worried – and wanting to just  _not lose him_.

“No, Jess.” Dean says, pulling her into his body. He runs his hands over her shoulders and down, dropping his forehead to hers as his fingers wrap around her wrists. “I meant you. How d’ _you_ feel?”

Jessica shakes her head and closes her eyes. She takes a deep inhale and lets it go, syncs her breathing to his.

He holds her in his filthy, battle-worn hands, brushes rough thumbs over her wrists. Then he dips in to kiss her. He kisses her like they didn’t just slaughter dozens of beings and aren’t standing among the carnage – like they have all the time in the world.

Jessica guesses they do, since time itself doesn’t mean anything that it used to. One minute she’s joking with Sam Winchester and the next he’s spiraling down the mortal coil in her arms.

Dean keeps kissing her as he walks her backward until her leather-covered spine meets a tree – not too gently. His mouth grows more demanding, desperate, pleading – and then he begs with words. “Please, Jess,” he mutters around her lips, pulling at his own button fly and hers. “I need…”

Jessica nods and helps him get their pants down to their knees. It’s complicated and really fucking risky, but she needs him, too. He dips to lift both her legs, slings her ankles over one of his shoulders and pins her there bent in half between his body and the tree. He holds her gaze with heat as he slips inside.

“Well, this’s a new one,” she whispers, grabbing for him to kiss again as he sets a rhythm.

The kiss and his drive inside her are fraught with tension and urgency. The way he’s got her twisted makes her so tight that he’s dragging over her slick clit with every slide. She takes him – hammering her into the bark, surrounded by smoke that reeks of death, and not a sound for miles but their heaving breaths.

“You with me?” Dean asks through his teeth with breath and ardor. Jessica can’t take her eyes from his.

She nods in answer. “Yes,” she breathes. “I’m with you.”

Dean nods, his tongue roiling behind his teeth, eyes hooded, and his lips hover against hers. “Come with me, then,” he whispers. “I’m gonna come.”

“Yeah,” Jessica replies, thrusting onto him for good measure, and they both cry into the damp night.

~~~~~~~

Nothing is the same after they burn Sam’s body. Dean’s quieter, a little gruffer; but he touches her more often, more gently, lingers.

“Don’t mean I wanna cuddle with Malcolm over there, just…” He’s fitted right up against her back at the kitchen sink, arms wrapped around her midsection, open mouth on her throat.

“Right,” Jessica breathes and arches her back as she turns the taps off just to hear him growl at the sensation of her ass bumping up into his groin. “You’re no longer allergic and can civilly share space with another male. Congratulations.”

Dean nips at her skin in admonishment. “Bed. Now.” His hands slide over her ribcage and down to grip her hips.

“Why not here?” Jessica flips her thick hair away to look at him over her shoulder.

“Ugh,” Dean groans. “Cat’s watching – gross.”

Jessica rolls her eyes and lets Dean drag her to bed.

They remember Sam and Trish. They work cases. They stay under the radar.

One night they come across Ketch. He was never discovered by the powers that be for helping them the night Sam died. They aren’t any more trusting of him than they ever were, but they’re thankful, nonetheless.

“This’s some good shit,” Dean says, swirling the brown liquid in the Norlan Rauk tumbler, watching it spin and cling.

Jessica agrees that it’s good, but she remains silent. She’s quiet much of the time these days as Dean is – pleasantly so. She’s content, happy even. She watches Dean’s small smile twist as he brings the lip of the glass to his mouth for another sip.

“Yes, well,” Ketch replies. “This surreptitious hostelry for wayward combatants such as we is quite surprisingly stocked with incredibly rare, unspeakably expensive varieties of drink.”

Jessica rolls her eyes at Ketch’s grandiose speech habits. She downs her scotch and nudges Dean to do the same. He nods and follows suit before turning back to Ketch.

“Well, thanks, Ketch,” Dean says as he and Jessica stand to leave the establishment. “Let’s never do this again.”

The three of them smirk in agreement, Ketch refocuses on his drink, and Dean and Jessica depart – for good.

They don’t look back at anything. They only look at each other and into the future. The peace they’ve achieved is hard-won and delicate; there’ve been too many losses, but their bond is stronger for it. They have each other.

Before, the thought of relying on someone who wasn’t herself was frightening. Now, it’s freeing. She’s comforted by the very knowledge that Dean will always be there when she wakes up in the morning and when she closes her eyes at night.

And she knows why this feels so right – it’s because it’s filled with grit and faith and synergy.

They’re better –  _best_  together.

They deserve this.

They deserve each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Like what you're reading? Let me know! xox


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